Labour leadership hopeful Yvette Cooper has admitted that there have been behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings to persuade candidates to bow out of the race to prevent veteran leftwing MP Jeremy Corbyn from winning.

Against a backdrop of increasingly desperate interventions from senior party figures appealing for those registered to vote to back anyone but Corbyn, ballot papers are expected to start arriving through the letterboxes on Monday of the 450,000 people who have registered to take part – many in the wake of Corbyn’s breakthrough in the polls.

The Daily Telegraph reported on Sunday night that former Labour cabinet minister Peter Mandelson attempted a “secret plot” to convince Corbyn’s three rival candidates – Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall – to pull out to annul the contest.

“I’ve not discussed this with Peter Mandelson,” said Cooper on Monday. “I gather there was some view that maybe the whole process should be stopped because so many people were joining at the last minute. I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s a good thing that people are joining the party.”

Cancelling elections because the "wrong" candidate is about to win is African dictatorship stuff. The fact that New Labour is actively trying to engineer it speaks volumes about their attitude to democracy, and their beliefs about who their party really belongs to.